The past few years have seen a significant boom is consumer savings opportunities. The most well-known, of course, are companies like Groupon and LivingSocial. More recently, Yelp initiated their effort for group buying and Google rumored a new service called Google Offers. These types of services are likely to flourish during the twenty-teens.

GroupOn is a service that has a deal of the day, per geographic region, which allows you to buy goods and services usually at more than 50% discount. There are a few restrictions but most people rave about it. Personally, I still have not adjusted to the idea of paying for a coupon. One downside of the service is that you have to opt-out of getting daily emails. I am a person who prefers to click my bookmark and see what the deal is – only when I feel like buying. There is nothing that annoys me more than receiving a daily bacon email (bacon emails are one step above spam because you know the service but still don’t want them in your inbox every single day!!!). LivingSocial is a similar service that offers even steeper discounts when people who you refer to the deal also purchase it. Yelp has joined the daily deal market and keep your eye out for Google offers.

With the boom in mobile computing technology, there are numerous opportunities to hunt for deals using services such as Foursquare, Facebook places, Gowalla, and Scvngr.

Location based social media is the next huge wave is consumer computing and Foursquare is leading the charge. Foursquare is a service that allows users to check-in to locations using their smartphones such as iPhone, Android, and Blackberry. The service has exploded in popularity and has over 7 million users. Not only can you check-in with friends and review stats on their website, local companies offer specials that are only visible to customers who use Foursquare. Just last week, I checked into a bar and saw that upon check-in, I could claim a free slider. Starbucks is also big supporter of Foursquare. At numerous Starbucks across the country, the Mayor (the person who has checked in the most time in the previous sixty days – maximum of one check-in per day is recorded) is able to claim a free cup of coffee every day! Facebook places, Gowalla and Scvngr came after foursquare and offer similar services.

Let’s say you are ready to get rid of you old phone and upgrade to one of the fancy smart phones so you can use Foursquare. You could trade in your phone old phone on Gazelle.com. This is a service that gives you cash for your gadgets.

If you have not already, you should try these great opportunities. I have reviewed some traditional websites and some location based services. If you want to know more, please feel free to contact me: josh@financialbeginnings.org.

My third experience with the middle school class was by far the hardest. The class had become very comfortable with me and as such it was very difficult for me to keep them quiet. Suffice it to say, it was not the most fun for me constantly trying to keep their attention. When I left I was unsure if the students had learned anything that day.

In the classes I taught since then I have not had such a hard time. I have been glad to have students that are well behaved and attentive. I have found that the enthusiasm of the class definitely varies by time of day. I can say the same thing in one class and get blank stares as I do in another and get tons of responses. The more I teach, the better each class has become. I have perfected not only my jokes but also by activities, questions, and visual aids. Each time I look forward to trying something new. (Quick note: if you are ever teaching multiple classes and you have jokes, the students talk to each other so it’s smart to have plenty of material).

Sometimes my ideas work well, other times they don’t. An example of something that did not work is when I tried to illustrate to a middle school class the importance of diversifying their investments. Since there math skills were not at the level I thought they would be, the game crashed and burned. I had to spend the whole time explaining how to do the math. It was not good. Since then, I have learned to have a contingency. If something is not working, I simply move on to something I know works well.

Of the limited hours I have spent teaching; it has mostly been middle and elementary school students. I look forward to teaching high school, because I am most enthusiastic about the higher level concepts I learned in economics classes throughout college. I was first turned onto economics in high school and I know the students have the capacity to understand the material. Find out next week what I love most about economics.

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Financial Beginnings Celebrates ‘Money Smart Week’ With Panel Discussion Featuring Oregon’s Top Financial Experts

PORTLAND, Ore., March 30, 2011— Financial Beginnings, a Portland-based nonprofit that provides free financial education to children and young adults, has partnered with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Oregon Jump$tart and Operation HOPE to celebrate Money Smart Week—April 2–9. Money Smart Week is designed to educate consumers about money management and features a variety of free financial education programs ranging from budgeting, saving and using credit wisely.

As part of Money Smart Week, Financial Beginnings will host a panel discussion featuring Oregon’s top financial experts covering timely financial issues. Moderated by The Oregonian’s Columnist Brent Hunsberger, the panel will field audience questions and offer advice on various financial topics including ways to pay down debt and how to save for college. The panel discussion will be April 7 at 6 p.m. at Portland State University’s Smith Memorial Union (1825 SW Broadway) room 327.

Panelists include:

Michael Parker, executive director of the Oregon College Savings Plan
Diane Childs, financial information outreach coordinator at the Oregon Division of Finance and Corporate Securities
Fernando Velez, consumer information specialist at the Oregon Division of Finance and Corporate Securities
Nelson Rutherford, CPA and certified financial planner at Alten, Sakai & Co
Jim Hunt, chief financial officer, OnPoint Community Credit Union

Financial Beginnings is also partnering with the Portland Business Alliance Leadership Portland group to host Dollars & $ense, a free family financial fair for low-income families, on April 9 from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. The fair will be held at Friends of the Children (44 NE Morris in Portland) and will include sessions on basic budgeting for families and how to teach children to save.

Specific information on Money Smart Week and the financial fair is available at
Moneysmartweek.org/oregon.

About Financial Beginnings
Formed in 2005 and based in Portland, OR, Financial Beginnings is a nonprofit organization that provides multi-session courses, free of charge, to students and young adults throughout the Pacific Northwest through visits to their individual schools or community groups. The courses incorporate all aspects of personal finance to provide individuals the foundation needed to make informed financial decisions. More information is available at www.financialbeginnings.org.

One gal screamed out, “I want Just Bieber!” Her male classmate yelled out in response, “I want Megan Fox.” I reluctantly added these to the white board next to items like shoes, clothing, iPod, and Xbox. I failed to specific that the goal was to list out items we wanted and we needed that had a monetary value.

The next session, Banking, went relatively well. During this session, I taught the students how to fill out a deposit slip, a withdrawal slip, how to use a check register, and how to write I check. I was impressed how many students already knew how to write a check. I used this to my advantage by asking a student to come up and show the class. Since, I have recognized that allowing the students to teach the class in this way is an effective teaching technique. It gives the students more ownership of the material and a better chance at retaining it.

A common asked by our volunteers is why we teach students about check books, and registers when they are on their way out. My answer is two-fold: first, we teach the students about writing checks because they will have to write a check in their life even if it’s less than in the old days. Second, knowing how to use a check register exemplifies proper money management techniques of budgeting and record keeping. While they may never use a register, they will need to master these techniques to take control their financial future.

Since we provide each student with a check register, I had to explain how to use it. Unfortunately, I have never used a register since I write so few checks! To underscore the importance of a check register, I explain to the class how I sometimes receive checks from family, work, or friends and I can go months without cashing them. They understood what it means to bounce a check which helped me convince them of the need to keep track of outstanding checks.

Side note: The check registers have been a source of continuous embarrassment for me. At a difference school, one student asked me what the check mark column was was on the check register. I honestly had no idea! I have never used it, so their teacher chimed in and we all learned it was for noting the purchase as tax deductible. In the same class, I then showed them how to put the check register and the checkbook into the little blue case. I never keep my checkbook in the case (let alone with a register) so I put it in upside down and the teacher called me out on it.

At the close of our second hour together the students felt very comfortable with me. One student even gave me the nick name: “J money.” This friendliness was a sign of the chaos to come during our third session together.

Even though I was not sure if the kids were laughing at me or my joke, I moved on with my lesson plan. I first wanted to teach the class some ideas about money. While money is perceived as a very simple concept, I asked the class: What is money? I received answers like, “money is green”, “money is good”, and “money can get you things.” These were all right answers but not what I was looking for.

Following my lesson plan, I proceeded to explain to the class the characteristics of money.
Has anyone ever had a homework assignment get wet? What happens to it? It turns to mush because it’s made of paper. Well what is money made out of?

No one knows the right answers, so I go to explain how it’s made of cotton and linen and ask: What happens if money gets wet, does it turn to mush?

They begin to understand. So then I explain – one characteristic of money is that it is durable. If money was not durable then people would not value it.

In the light of my poorly told joke, I attempt to explain the next concept, that money must be divisible. I ask: What if you had a cow and I had two sheep, but you only wanted one sheep, what should be done? One student asserts that we should cut the cow in half, the class laughs. I say, you could do that but what if it’s a milk cow. This leads me to explain that money must be divisible, or else someone is going to lose out in every transaction.

Lastly, I want to explain that money must be transportable. If money was not transportable it would be very difficult and time consuming to make transactions. What if I had to carry a bag of gems to the store to buy food? I could but that would be inefficient.

We then talk about bartering and trading for a few minutes, some students shock me with their knowledge of the early forms of money — such as sea shells.

For the next part of my lesson, I seek to have the students distinguish between needs and wants. I was shocked to hear some of the crazy things they want, stay tuned to find out what they were.